One Year Ago Today - Part 1

Last year on this day, I had dragged my massively pregnant self to work for one last shift before having a few days off over Christmas. I had planned to try to work almost up to my due date of January 11th at the beginning of the pregnancy, but at this point I had convinced Sean to let me quit a little earlier. I was just so sore and my job involved a lot of walking around. My feet were so swollen that all I wore to work (in addition to business casual dress) were a pair of black slippers that looked relatively like shoes and an over-sized pair of black ugg-type boots. After Christmas break, I was only going to have to work three more shifts and then I was going to sleep as much as you can when you are nine months pregnant. I was very excited.


I had planned that the day was going to be busy and awful, because that was usually how it went as a home care liaison on the day before a holiday break. Lots of last minute referrals for patients who didn't want to stay in the hospital over Christmas but couldn't really go home safely completely on their own. I dragged my roller bag around the hospital and wrapped up all of my work. I parked myself down in the Au Bon Pain at RUMC in Chicago and strained to lean over and get my laptop out of my bag to transmit referrals. I kept waiting for my pager to go off with a bunch of new referrals, but it really didn't as much as I was thinking it would. Perhaps the case managers were feeling sorry for me being huge and pregnant and decided to dump difficult and last minute patients on some other home care agency liaison. Whatever the reason, I was thankful. I was sore and didn't really care about getting any more patients.


I finished around 4 or so and booked it out of there fast. Little did I know that would be the last time I would finish a day at that job.


Sean and I were going to go out to eat with a gift certificate to Ruth's Chris steakhouse that my brother-in-law had given us for Christmas. We got dressed up and headed downtown. I ordered a delicious steak and baked potato, and we sat in a booth in a corner of the restaurant (I can still see it clearly in my head: Sean facing the booth and me facing the dining area), taking our time and enjoying what was probably to be our last night out at a nice restaurant for a while. 


After our long dinner and a couple glasses of wine for Sean, we thought it might be nice to walk around downtown for a little while. Christmas in Chicago is beautiful. But as we waited for the bill to come, I felt less and less like walking around. I was just tired. I didn't want to be such a downer but told Sean that I thought I just wanted to go home. So we drove back home and went to bed around 10:30pm or so that evening. 


I awoke at 1:09am to a strange sensation.... 

California or Bust - The Big Road Trip

I have been taking pictures all along the way on our big moving adventure to California. We left Chicago on June 21st and are not able to move in until the 29th, so we made a vacation out of our trip. It has been interesting to be technically homeless and living out of our car, although Sean says, "everyone should do that once in their lifetime." 


Instead of writing about it all again on here, I just decided to share the link to all of the pics. 


Next post from a California girl!

Bike the Drive

Yesterday morning was the annual Bike the Drive here in Chicago in which Sean participated this year. They close down Lake Shore Drive for about six hours in the morning and people appear from everywhere to ride their bikes down the road along the lake for 30 miles (15 miles one way). 

It was not raining, so the weather was not completely uncooperative (it has been raining constantly for the last couple days). Apparently the morning was extremely foggy to the point that one could not see anything apart from the road, which is really too bad because there are some fabulous views of the city and the lake.

Chicago River bridge

looking into the city from the bridge

looking out at the lake from the bridge

After getting up at 4:30am and biking 30 miles, Sean came home and went to church with us, packed up some boxes in the afternoon, and even managed to grill burgers for dinner while the rest of us hung out on the deck! What a wonderful guy!!

 

Of course I had to get some pictures of Cora squeezed in here too! ;)

Mother's Day

I was actually more excited for Mother's Day than I have been for any other holiday in a while. My first one... In church they always honor the mothers by having them stand during the service, and that was going to be me! 


We went to church and heard a wonderful sermon! Afterwards, Sean took me downtown to get me a Mother's Day gift. We stopped at a little cafe and bought sandwiches, which we took to a nearby park to eat. He bought me a silver heart-shaped locket with two compartments. I am going to put a picture of Cora and a lock of her newborn hair into it. 


It was a lovely day.

As a special gift to me, Cora laughed for the first time on Mother's Day. I thought she had laughed once before, but it was nothing like this. I think she was just on the verge of crying the other time, and it sort of came out like a laugh. This was contagious!! Sean was swinging her, and she just kept giggling at him. I didn't get her on film the first time, but yesterday she was at it again. Enjoy!

Gramma Comes To Visit

This past weekend Gramma Kitty came to stay. She rode the MegaBus with her friend Sharon, who also has a daughter here in Chicago. Sean and I went to a formal event for his work (pictures to follow later) on Saturday and Gramma babysat. We spent the rest of our time together at home. Cora has recently started cooing and she has discovered the faces of her stuffed animals. She loves to look at them. She seems to want to grab them but hasn't quite figured out how to do that yet. The fingers usually just end up going in her mouth without the elusive stuffed dog ear she contemplated trying to chew. It was fun to share a few of those first "talking" times with Gramma.

Bath time

Talking to her stuffed dog

On Monday we met Sharon and her daughter Danielle at Starbucks by my house and then went back to our apartment to hang out. Sharon gave Cora some beautiful gifts, including a recordable book that Gramma can "read" to Cora when we are far away from her.

Here are some more pictures of the long weekend. Sean worked every day, which is why he was not around for pictures. I am excited that we are going back to MN next week, because it was sad to see Gramma go.

On our way to the cupcake shop across the street to indulge in decadent deliciousness.

Flying with Gramma

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Cora wants to wish everyone a happy St. Paddy's day!!! We went for a walk by the lake in our 65 degree weather.

Erin Go Bragh!!

Ladies Birthday Dinner

My friend Erin organized a birthday dinner for me on Thursday. Cora stayed home with Daddy. We went to a wonderful all-you-can-eat sushi place and stuffed ourselves. I have such wonderful friends here in Chicago, and I will miss them a lot when we move in June.

Spring Fever

We are so very excited for spring to arrive over here. I am overjoyed that it is the first day of March (other than the fact that this means I will turn 30 in a couple days). This is the beginning of the end. Today was in the 40s. A little windy but sunny and gorgeous! Sean was off, so we all took a long walk down to the lake. 


While we loved being able to be outside, we were also reminded of how happy we will be to get out of this neighborhood. We saw a couple drunk guys (it was 2 in the afternoon), a gentleman zipping up his fly as he had just urinated in the alley, and a couple of dudes exchanging pot in the park just as we walked by. They didn't even care that we were right there. 


Cora was oblivious to all of the above as she snoozed in her Moby wrap.